PAKISTAN: NO PLAN TO ABOLISH DEATH SENTENCE, NISAR TELLS SENATE

October 30, 2013: Pakistani Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan categorically stated that the government did not plan to abolish death sentence or convert it into life imprisonment.
“The present government is not doing it. It cannot even think of it. We will not convert death sentence into life imprisonment,” the minister said in the Senate in response to a question raised by PPP’s Karim Khawaja who had sought a policy statement on the matter.
Chaudhry Nisar disclosed that in 2011 the previous government had proposed that death sentence should be converted into life term, but there had been no progress on the matter.
Former president Asif Ali Zardari had announced a moratorium on execution and the present government is observing it. (Sources: dawn.com, 31/10/2013)